Fonu is a short story set in the South Pacific many years from now. Devastated by storms, technology and progress, the region is now New Oceania and it belongs to The Trinity, a conglomerate of three Eastern companies who realized it was easier to “develop” the region working together, rather than competing against.
As a young girl does her best to survive in New Oceania, she hears chatter of The Trinity finding something of great importance in what’s left of the oceans. She doesn’t know what it is, but she knows The Trinity can not be allowed to have it.
This is a short story I wrote for an anthology that didn’t happen. Looking at it now, it could definitely been written better, but I still love the ideas and themes. DM me if you want to collaborate something based on this. I working on turning it into a graphic novel.
Fonu
By
Clarence Dass
1.
New Oceania belongs to the Trinity. Over 9 million square miles of land and sea, cordoned off to create the biggest commercial sector on the planet, controlled by three powerful East Asian countries that one day realized there was more profit in working together than against.
There was much to find in Oceanic waters and the Trinity had a market waiting for all of it.
With the passing of time, technology grew and soon the fishing vessels that hauled the daily catch grew too. They became too big to dock at the old harbors, so giant sectors of reclaimed land was raised, made of soil and rock at first, before turning into extensive land masses of steal and concert, that stretched from the main land out to sea.
The coastal villages were the first to go, but with pockets lined, the Pacific Governments did nothing to stop this extending foothold into the Pacific by the Trinity; and by the time the Pacific people realized what they were losing, it was too late.
By now, hundreds of Trinity fishing vessels were scattered across the region. Like giants they stood against the horizon, catching and shipping massive tones of fish out of the South Pacific every day.
Then the storm hit.
The Tahitians called the storm Toa, named after their God of war, and it was seen as Nature’s way of fighting back, but the Trinity was resourceful.
At first the sheer size of the vessels that dredged the oceans allowed them to withstand the storm’s winds. Storm-suits were introduced; a fusion of hydraulics and metal fashioned into an exoskeleton, that allowed workers to man the surface of these vessels under the most extreme conditions.
As the storm grew stronger however, more decisive measures were taken.
Spending billions of dollars, the Trinity moved their operations away from the raging winds and rain on the surface to the more manageable currents under the sea. Soon the Ocean floor was lined with facilities that stretched for miles, their lights glowing in the darkness of the depths like ghosts.
This move from the surface to underwater was later affirmed with the invention of the Hydro Drive, the greatest discovery known to man, patented and owned by the Trinity.
The science behind the Hydro Drive is hard to explain, but it’s basic functionality is to move mass from one body of water to anther, essentially teleporting it great distances at the blink of an eye. With this in place, it was only a matter of time before the Pacific waters were stripped dry.
Today the only life you’ll find in the old South Pacific waters are the Synthetics; mechanical frames designed to grow a meat substitute to mirror the marine life now long gone from these waters. They swim in schools like the real thing, only given away by the eerie blue glow that lines their artificial flesh.
There is a market for it. So it exists.
Today the surface of New Oceania is a barren wasteland. Under the hold of a storm that never sleeps and a benefactor that has all but driven the Pacific people out of their homes. The few islanders who do wander the New Oceania, do so as scavengers and are seen by the Trinity as outsiders that need to be policed and controlled.
Outsiders in the waters that were once their gift from the gods.
2.
Fonu watched the storm clouds boiling at a distance. Every now and then a finger of lighting would strike the horizon and she would count the seconds till the roar of thunder that followed. She never got too high though, as the storm was close. The boom of it shook the metal walls around her and echoed down the halls of the Nostromo, the submarine vessel that was taking her and her crew to the walls of New Oceania.
She was counting down another lightening strike when she heard someone clear their throat behind her.
Turning she saw it was Raj, awkwardly standing at the door, looking sorry for taking her away from her concentration.
“Are they ready?” she asked
“They are all waiting for you. Igi has already briefed them, but want’s you to go over your part
“Then lets get started”
Fonu let Raj lead her through the narrow halls of the sub. She hated tight spaces and she wanted to hold back and follow so that Raj would not see the effort she had to exert to keep her composure. Fonu was convinced it was all over her face.
Luckily the last narrow hall they turned lead into a fairly open room. A metal table adorned its center, sat with a group that was loud in discussion as the two entered. As she took her place at an empty seat at the head of the table, the chatter stopped and she could feel the pins of eyes fixed on her.
Next to her was Igi, a huge Samoan man who looked just as uncomfortable as she did. With his huge hands he whipped the sweat from his brow, sweat which despite the sub’s cooling vents, seemed to pour out of him. Shifting his weight he stood up to address the room.
“Alright, so this is the person who brought us here” he said gesturing towards Fonu. “let me just introduce you guys to her before we go on, or better yet, lets just go around the table and you can introduce yourselves”
The man to the right of him immediately spoke up.
“I’m Vili and I hate being this close to the wall”
“You have to excuse our Fijian brother here” interjected Igi, “he is our resident dick head”
“No, really” insisted Vili “I don’t appreciate being dragged out here with fuck all information, so close to the Trinity wall, where they could pick us off any minute”
“If you would bear with us Vili, Fonu will be explaining why were are here”
“And who the hell is she?” fumed Vili “she’s not a Hammer Head, I’ve never seen her before”
“Ok, I can see this is getting us no where so stuff introductions” Igi sat down annoyed and pointed around the table, “that’s Vili, Marica our biology expert, Ben our logistics person, and you’ve met Raj our very own arsonist”
“I prefer demolitionist and that’s very different from being an arsonist” spoke Raj under his breath, which stirred a bit of laughter to ease what was clearly a cloud of tension rising in the room.
“We are the Hammer Heads” continued Igi, “long story short, we try our best to fuck things up for the Trinity and today we’re here with Fonu because she has something for us that sounds very interesting, so Fonu if you will”
Now Fonu is even more nervous. She pushes her chair back and looks over at Raj, who sends her an equally nervous smile.
“Five days ago I was in a bar off the coast of PNG” starts Fonu “There I met with a friend of mine who works with the communications branch of Trinity. He said that he and his crew where asked to take an extended leave of absence from their work.”
“So you friend got fired, what the hell does this have to do with us?” bursts Vili
“Vili, come on bro” pleads Igi, “just let her finish”
“My friend was Papua New Guinean, the rest of the crew that were told to leave were also Islanders, he said that there were all replaced by people the Trinity had brought in from their main land. My friend thinks there were replaced because the Trinity didn’t trust them”
Fonu gave a quick glance around he room to gage some sort of response from the crew; they seemed curious now.
“A day or two before this, there was high communications chatter amongst the execs of Trinity, what my friend gathered from this was they where planning on moving something”
“Moving what?” asked Marica
“I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s important enough to garner this kind of secrecy and because of that of that I thought I’d let Igi know”
Igi stood up beside Fonu, giving a comforting squeeze to her shoulder.
“Fonu and I have been friends for a long time and I’ve been trying to get her to join us for a while” he turned to face Fonu, “I was glad you called”
“So where do we fit into all of this” asked Vili “we don’t even know what they’re moving”
“Whatever it is, we’re going to find it and destroy it” says Igi, slamming his fist into the table. “we’ve been trying to make some kind of dent in their operations for a long time and this just might be break we need”
“So that’s why were here in this sector” Ben finally joins in, “this is the region where they have their Hydro Drive”
“That’s right” smiles Igi “if we’re lucky, Raj here can make a Boom big enough that we smash whatever it is their sending through and the Hydro Drive as well”
A look of concern crawls over Marica’s face, “But how are we even going to get in there?” she asks half in thought to herself, “The Trinity will be patrolling those waters like mad”
“That’s why we have the sub” assures Igi, “we’ll get as close to the wall as we can under water and then we’ll use Storm Suits to swim in undetected.
“Storm suits?” Vili looks surprised
“Fo’ sure” Igi smiles “our boy Ben here managed to secure us some Storm Suits, he got them at a Steal too”
“You’ll like ‘em bro” Ben says to Vili “I got us some nice Fiji Government commissioned ones”
Villi seems unimpressed, “This is going to suck” he says getting up to walk away.
“You better be going to get your rest bro” says Igi “because we’re hitting the Hydro Drive base in the morning.
3.
It has been an hour since the Nostromo went underwater and now Fonu stands staring out the window into the darkness of the depths. Talk about being thrown into the deep end, going from being a quiet admirer of the Hammer Heads to getting ready to take part in seems be their most daring mission yet.
“This could be huge” says Raj as he hands Fonu a cup of tea. She takes it with a “thank you” smile and has a sip. “If this goes well we could really stick it to the Trinity” a hint of worry on his voice.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this” Fonu says, blowing on her cup, “Yesterday I was just a girl working a bar and now I’m going up against the Trinity”
“It’s scary” says Raj “and it’s alright to be afraid. Some times I wonder what I’m doing here too”
“What are you doing here?”
“My people have a weird history with Oceania. The first generation of my family to set foot on these islands were pretty much slaves, tricked into coming here with the promise of good fortune and that’s kind of how this whole mess started“
“The promise of fortune” added Fonu
“Yeap, when the Trinity started flashing it’s money and building things that we thought would help the islands, we couldn’t see what the true cost would be. We know now that nothing coming for free, there is no such thing as good will and every one is out for their own gain”
“What island were you from Raj?”
“My family lived in Fiji and a lot of people hate me for being a Fijian”
“Because Fiji spear headed the Trinity’s work”
“That’s right. Fiji was the first to sign over so much and it worked out for us for a bit, but now we have nothing. Fiji soon became the main base of operations and the Trinity spread like a virus from there.”
“So you’re here to fix that?”
“Hell no” says Raj with a laugh “I’m here to blow all of it up. Every damn Trinity thing I can bring down makes me feel a little bit better”
They share a laugh and continue to stare out the window; soon Raj is back to his nervous self again.
“It’s going to be dangerous out there, are you ready?”
“No” says Fonu
“Neither am I”
4.
The Nostromo was less than a mile away from the wall. No one had slept. It was 5am when the alarm to gather in the lower deck came on and everyone was there waiting before Igi walked in.
“So as you know, this thing stretches all around New Oceania” Igi is referring to the wall a head. “It is built in sections, so there are a few gaps here and there, not big enough for something like the Nostromo to get through, but big enough for us to swim through in the Storm Suits”
Igi scans the room, giving an opportunity for anyone to ask a question or pass a comment, but no one says anything so he continues.
“Once we’re past the wall, the Hydro Drive Facility is about a mile away from where we enter. The Storm Suits have been modified with water thrusters that will allow us to get there with little trouble. There will be drone patrols though, so we’ll have to look out for them, the suits monitoring software has also been collaborated to warn us when these drones get close.”
“What about the Trinity Security?” asks Vili
“I’ve fashioned mine and Igi’s suit with a scrambler” Ben answers promptly, “we’ll be pulsing the scrambler every few meters to make sure the drones don’t pick us up”
“Once we get into the Facility, we find the Hydro Drive and cover Raj as he set ups the explosives to take it out” Igi continues
It’s Fonu who interrupts next “Cover Raj how?” and she is answered by the sound of metal clicking and locking into place. She turns to find Vili cocking a riffle of some sort.
“What the fuck?” Fonu takes a step away from the gun, “no one said anything about guns”
“What did you think Trinity is going to do once we get in?” says Vili with a laugh
“let us walk up to the Drive all cool?”
“This is crazy Igi, I don’t want to shoot anyone” Fonu’s voice is breaking
“And you won’t have to” Igi is now cocking his own gun “We only have two of these and Vili and I will be using them. Besides, most of the facility is automated, we’ll hardly come across anyone”
“This is bullshit” exclaims Fonu, “I didn’t agree to this”
“Fonu, get real, this isn’t some bullshit Green Peace protest” an anger boils in Igi’s voice, “the Trinity doesn’t fuck around and neither do we, If you want you’re welcome to stay in the sub, but I take no responsibly for what happens to you if the Trinity finds it”
Fonu doesn’t know what to say. She begins to walk away only to hear Igi again
“We’ve got no time to muck around now, suit up, there’s the wall”
5.
Fonu was at the peak of her anxiety as she climbed into her Storm Suit. The worn padding that lined the inside of the suit did little to make her feel comfortable. In fact, it only made her break out in a sweat. She felt her feet find the bottom of the leg shoots and then she slid her arms into place. Her own arms stopped about half way down the suits arms, where they met a panel of buttons and sliders that she could feel with her fingers.
Raj stepped up to place her helmet.
“You’ve used one of these before right?” he asked has he slid the helmet over her head.
“Once, when I was younger. My dad had one for scavenging”
“It’s easy. Once it comes online, you just move around like you normally would and the suit will do the rest. In fact, let me introduce you to your suit”
As he spoke the helmet sealed shut in place letting out a hiss of air and for a moment Fonu could not hear anything. The vacuum of the helmet made her ears ring and she fought the feeling to gasp for air. Then the suit lit up and a display sprawled out in front of her.
“Systems online” rang a voice in her headset as the green glow of information screens lit the inside of her helmet. She could hear Raj again, though his voice sounded like it was coming through a radio.
“Ok, so you see all that stuff on the screen” continued Raj, “that’s your heads up display, it’ll tell you everything you need to know, from the amount of air you have left, to how fast your going and if you look the bottom left, you have the directions for your thrusters”
Fonu scanned the display until she found what Raj was referring to. There was an impression of her left and right hands with moving indicators that promoted various functions.
There were other dials and numbers telling her things like her body temperature, wind velocity and an outline of the suit that showed the various parts of it and what condition they were in.
The oxygen was all she cared about.
“I’ll be right behind you if anything” said Raj as he walked towards his own suit “so don’t worry about anything”
Easier said than done thought Fonu. The suit began to cool as its ventilation functions caught up and Fonu was grateful for that because it made it just a little more bearable.
Soon everyone was suited up and Igi made his way towards the front of the crew so they could all see him. Fonu noticed that she could see little figures on her display that represented each of them and from the monitoring system she also saw that Igi’s heart was racing.
“Ok everyone, into the pressure chamber” Igi called out as he made his way first.
They entered a smaller room, the floor of which had a line running down the middle as though it could open up. Fonu will find out later that it indeed does. The walls of the chamber were made of reinforced glass and through it she could make out the Trinity wall. It stretched as far as she could see to either side and it rose high above them like a giant of metal and concert. She had no idea how deep they were, but it was deep enough for her to see the sea bed.
Fonu grew even more nervous.
As the doors shut behind them a red light filled the room and a second later a series of vents along the side opened up to let in a flurry of water. Within moments the chamber was filled with water and then the floor opened and gave way, dropping the crew into the depths. As Fonu sunk out of Nostromo, she looked up to see the exit hatch close above her, then a hum started as the hydro tubes along her back and at the bottom of the Storm Suit’s feet started pumping water. She found herself suspended in place.
“That’s the suit keeping you steady” she heard Raj say, just follow the directions on the side and keep up with us”
She followed the instructions on screen and as she began to thrust forward, she looked up to see that the others were already making their way towards an opening in the wall.
Though it wasn’t hard for her to keep up, she moved cautiously, the darkness of the depths making her feel uneasy. She forced her self to focus on the glow of the helmets ahead of her, fearing what she might see if she lost a glance at the emptiness around her.
As she grew closer to the gap in the wall though, a faint glow began to appear. Igi was waiting for her at the gap, letting the others go in first.
“You’re doing well” he said as she got closer. She heard a remark from Vili, but it was under his breath and she couldn’t make out what it was. She was going to say something back, but then she saw the sight ahead of her.
The wall must have been over a few hundred meters thick, which meant that they had to travel a few hundred meters between the wall segments before they got through, but this went by easily as she was transfixed on the massive complex she could see s laid out before her.
Though the Hydro Drive facility was still a good mile or so away, they could see it clearly, its light as bright as day. It looked like an entire city, built under water. With towers and glass walk ways bustling with blinking lights. Fonu did not like what the Trinity were doing in New Oceania, but she could not help but be marveled by their ingenuity.
The crew came out of the gap and were on a sort of underwater hillside, looking down at the facility. Igi positioned himself on a rock and turned to face them.
“There it is” he said “we have to keep low and get there as soon as we can. Like I said, we’ll pulse every couple of meters so we don’t get picked up by any security drones, but just be careful”
And with that, he launched himself off the rock and down the hill. The others followed.
Fonu stared directly ahead, mesmerized by the structure in front of her. She had heard stories of this place, but to see such a thing with your own eyes was something else.
A glimmer of light distracted her and she turned to see a patch of light at a distance. As she squinted, knowingly the Storm Suit brought up a smaller display on the side which zoomed into the area she was looking at. She then realized that she was staring at a school of fish.
The light was coming from the fine lines that ran along their side that glowed a faint blue. They were synthetics. They swam in unison in a spiral, shimmering against the darkness, seemingly oblivious to anything else.
Then as Fonu watches, their faint blue glow turns to red and they begin to slow down, the spiral shape they swam turning into a ball. Behind them Fonu could see a giant mass approaching and it scared her. She backed up into Ben who was behind her, also looking at what’s happening.
“It’s a fishing drone” he says in awe
Behind the synthetic fish appears what looks to be a giant metal sphere. At its center is a giant circular light that glows red like a giant eye. As Fonu and the crew watches, the front of the sphere opens and long metal, tentacle like arms begin to crawl out of it. There are at least a few hundred arms, thick as a human arm but hundreds of meters long, and they move as though they were, each one of them, alive.
Some of them begin to usher the fish into the Sphere’s opening, while others start grabbing at the fish and pulling them in. The synthetics make no effort to swim away; instead they are completely docile and simply swim towards the Sphere.
“They’re programmed to swim into it” explains Ben.
They watched the Sphere complete its task. Silhouetted against the dark, like a giant sea monster from some ancient myth. As the final Synthetic swims into its jaws, the crew can see other red circles of light appear in the distance. Soon a sea of metal monsters are feeding around them.
6.
They had reached the perimeter of the facility and so far it seemed that the scrambler pulse had worked. No alarms were raised and no security drones in sight.
“We need to get to a terminal” ordered Igi “that way we can link up and then Ben can get a layout for this place. We’re coming up to what looks like a loading bay, we should be able to find something here somewhere”
As Igi had mentioned, most of the facility seemed to be automated, with not a person in sight. Following Ben, who in turn was following a series of cables, they soon came to a panel mounted to what appeared to be a set of cargo doors.
Ben pulled a wire from a fitting on the arm of his suit. He plugged it into a port on the panel and after a few button presses he breathed a sigh of relief.
“You got a map?” asked Vili
“Hell no,” laughs Ben, “all I did right now was blind the monitoring equipment for this area, once we get inside we should be able to find some sort of map”
Another button stroke and the cargo doors opened to compression chamber. This is one is much bigger than the one on the Nostromo, and it takes a while for the water in it to drain out. When it finally does, a set of doors open to what reassembled a warehouse. Inside they find; Nothing.
The place was empty. No worker drones, no personal. Whatever was going to happen tonight seemed to have required all other operations to be halted. This made Igi nervous as he could not believe the luck that has brought them this far unhindered.
Ben on the other had had no time for thought as he was already hooking his suit up to the console at the end of the room. The rest of the crew made their way past empty conveyor belts and storage containers to see that Ben had pulled up some sort of schematic for the building.
“Ok, so we have to make our way down that hall” he said pointing to a closed door behind the console, “in fact, what I’ll do is patch the way-points to the Hydro Drive to your suits computer and that should be able to guide you to…”
They saw the visor on Ben’s helmet splatter with blood before they heard the shot. Marica and Fonu screamed as Ben’s lifeless body hit the floor, while Vili and Igi turned, guns raised, to see that room was filled with Trinity guards.
At least twenty of them had taken up defensive positions through out the room, black visors making them seem faceless, the green lasers from their trained guns, finding their mark on the crew. They were in all black except for the one who stepped forward to address them, he was dressed in red. He raised a hand and the others lowered their guns.
“You are not supposed to be here” he spoke in a thick accent, “kindly put your weapons down and step out of the Storm Suits”
“What the fuck do we do man?” asked Vili under his breath, his gun scanning from one way to the other.
At first Igi says nothing, but then glancing down at the panel in front of them, he mutters;
“Just stay calm”
He looks down at Fonu, Marica and Raj who are under the console table, cowering.
“Raj, take the girls and head to the Drive, we’ll hold them off”
Raj says nothing.
“RAJ!” screams Igi, “pay attention bro, you gotta make a run for the Drive, ditch your suits on the way out, they’ll only slow you down, we’ll hold em off here”
Igi turns to Vili “we got this bro”
“we got this” spits Vili through grit teeth.
“Now, when we start firing you run for that door, ima hit the button to open it here”
“I can’t do it” Fonu cries
“Fonu, I’m sorry about all of this, but you can do this” Igi assures her. The Trinity guards raise their guns again, the one in red now falling back into cover.
“Now we’re going to start shooting on the count of three” says Igi
One
“No please wait” Raj begs
Two
Marica screams and begins to make a move
Three
A shot finds its place right into the back of Marica’s helmet. She falls face first and immediately a pool of blood surrounds her body. Igi slams his fist into the control panel and the doors behind them open. As Raj and Fonu make their way through, they hear the gun fire erupt behind them, the sounds of which muffle as the doors once again close.
Turning the corner Raj falls to his knees, taking off his helmet.
“What do we do?” he cries into his hands.
Fonu falls down next to him, blinking hard to get the tears out of her eyes. With a press of a button her helmet slides off and she quickly scrambles out of her Storm Suit.
“Raj, we have to keep going”
“But they’re all dead, we fucked up” Raj is shaking
“Listen to me” she grabs Raj by the face, “we have to keep going, you grab your stuff”
Raj gathers his explosive materials and Fonu grabs one of their helmets, the way-point map to the Hydro Drive blinking on the visors display. Turning the next corner, a loud siren begins to wail through the facility, whatever discretion there was to their intrusion is now gone. Fonu barely here’s the siren over the sound of her heart beating hard against her chest. Her only motive right now is to run with all her being. She glances at Raj between breaths to make sure that he is keeping up; the last thing she wants is to be alone right now.
Looking at the visor, she sees that the chamber housing the Hydro Drive is around the next corner, but as they come around they are greeted by a line of Trinity Guards with guns raised. Behind them, Fonu can see a group of men and women in suits. They look worried and confused, nervously chatting amongst themselves.
“Alright, that’s far enough” says one of the guards, “you don’t want to end up like your friends, so don’t do anything stupid”
Fonu and Raj stare at other, each expecting the other to give some sort of que, a que to anything. The guards begin to circle around them, the green laser sights of their guns flashing against Fonu’s eyes. She blinks looking away, her arms raised.
One of the guards quickly grabs her and kicks the back of her knees. She falls down hard and he holds her head down against the cold, tiled floor.
“You should never have come here” he mutters at her.
Another guard makes his way to Raj who looks as though he is on the verge of a panic attack. As the guard reaches for Raj’s hands, Raj quickly backs off and pulls a C4 satchel from his side.
“Nobody move!” he screams over the sirens “or I’ll blow us all the fuck up”
The guards immediately train their guns on him and the people in suits begin to panic.
“Just let her through the doors” he demands, gesturing to the room ahead. He has no idea if it has the Hydro Drive because every sign and written direction he has seen so far has been foreign.
The guards do nothing. Then one of the men in suits yells an order. Immediately the guard holding down Fonu lets her go. She rushes to Raj, who has his eyes fixed at the guards and people ahead.
“Raj what are you doing?” Fonu sobs
“What we came to do Fonu”
“But what do I do when I get in there?”
“I don’t know” grits Raj, “Just do something, there should be something in there for you to smash or pull apart”
Fonu starts to cry and the guards begin to move in closer
“Hey!” shouts Raj, his voice hoarse, “you back the fuck up!”
He turns to Fonu; “Go now!”
Fonu gathers herself and slowly walks towards the doors ahead. Half the guards turn to face her, their guns slowly tracking her. She walks past the people in suits who are horrified at the sight of her. They quickly move away and hide their faces. As she is about to make it to the doors a struggle breaks out behind her.
She turns to see the guards trying to overpower Raj. His screams competing with the sirens wail.
“Run” he shouts at her.
Fonu turns to see the giant sliding doors to the room ahead lowering down. Running as fast as she can, she shifts her momentum and falls on to her side, letting her body slide across the smooth surface of the titles, right under the lowering shutters.
With her eyes closed she hears the slam of metal on concrete as the doors shut behind her. Outside she can hear yelling. Orders being snapped over the screaming sirens, feet shuffling across tiles; but no sound from Raj
How was she going to get out here?
Fonu found herself in a giant room with high, curving walls which suggested a circular shape. She squinted her eyes at the ceiling but could not see it. The room was lit but a pale blue light coming from ahead of her.
And then she saw it.
A massive wall of blue light stood in front of her. It curved inwards away from her and stretched all the way up till it disappeared into the darkness.
Inside she could see water. It was a massive tank of water.
This was the Hydro Drive; but what were they so hard out to transport today?
She pressed up against the glass, the entire floor of the tank was lit with a dull white glow. In periods around the circumference, giant pipes feed into it and they seemed to be pumping water in and out. Suddenly a shape swam past her and she jumped back with a fright, landing on her back. As she stared up at the tank, beyond the glass she saw it.
It was there. It was…
A turtle.
No glowing lines on it. No Synthetic cuts where the segments of its body met. This was a real turtle, alive and swimming before her. This was impossible.
She quickly got up and ran up to the glass, pressing her hands and face against it. The turtle was swimming along the curve of the glass, gliding up and then down to keep a looping track.
It was beautiful. It’s long, slender fins gliding it effortlessly, the markings on its shell were so fine that they seemed almost painted on. Its underside shined white as the lights from the floor bounced off it.
There has been nothing alive in these waters for years. Where did the Trinity find him? What do they plan to do with him?
That turtle seemed to pay no attention to her.
It was like watching a piece of something ancient, totally oblivious to her, caught in its own place.
Staring at the turtle, Fonu didn’t hear the shutter doors opening, or the sound of rushing feet moving frantically towards her.
She doesn’t hear the shattering bang either.
She did feel her legs give way. She braced herself against the glass as she slid down onto her knees, looking down to see a red blossom gushing down her chest. Instinctively she pressed her hand against it, but the blood simply ran through her fingers.
Fonu looked up to see the turtle right in front of her now. Its giant eyes fixed upon her as it glided in place, staring at her like it knew her. She tried to touch it, but only smeared her blood across the glass. Looking into the turtle’s eye, Fonu felt her own eyes flooding with tears.
The room darkened around her as the sound of footsteps getting closer and frantic chatter, faded from her ears.
The last thing she would feel is a sense of immense sadness. Not because she knew she was going to die down here, but because she knew she was going leave him with them.
New Oceania belonged to the Trinity, but not the Turtle. He belonged to a time we will never see again.
THE END
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